Paris-1

The high-speed Thalys from Amsterdam to Paris was, well not very high speed and reached Paris 35 minutes late. I read somewhere that "late" for Japanese is 1 minute. For British it is 10 minutes and though I did not know it then, for French it is 30 minutes. So we were very late by Japanese standards, though on good time by Indian standards. Just an anecdote here. My biggest influence for this whole trip is Paul Theroux's 'The Railway Bazaar', and I took it along for a second reading. In it he describes a transfer of 700 passengers from a train to a ferry in Japan which takes about 15 minutes. He compares it with a similar operation in India which took about 8 hours. I am not saying this to make fun of Indians, but to say that Japanese are little robots with little printed circuits in their tiny heads.
My hotel was near the Charles de Gaulle airport. Getting there from Paris Nord was a joyous 1.5 hr ride. I had to take what in Paris is called RER A, which to be honest guys, with all due respect, looked like a train out of Somalia. The train was dirty, with graffiti all over, was full of dodgy looking people of one color, dressed like they were in Africa not in continental Europe, and the biggest shock for me, there were so many beggars on that train. The only outsiders apart from me were a couple of American guys who looked like they were mercenaries from a Rambo movie. Weirdly enough, they asked ME which station we are at, when we stopped somewhere.
After I finally managed to get to my hotel, I got my first taste of what a budget hotel is. Seriously, the toilet was a totally plastic piece. That is, it was a big chunk of plastic in which a toilet, a shower and a sink are moulded out. I just fit in it to take a shower. And for the first time in my life I was happy that I am not anymore fatter than I am. Tommorow I will post a pic of an escalator in Paris, and you will understand why I came up with the slogan "Paris-not for fat people".

Day 1 and 2-Amsterdam

I have seen places with lots of sex, and places with lots of drugs, but never anyplace with such a mixture of too much sex and too many drugs.
Firstly though, I got down at Hook of Holland, which is one of those remote looking ports, with a railway station that has one platform. So I caught this train to Rotterdam from which I caught a train to Amsterdam central. I have to tell you, I loved the trains in Holland. The train that took me into Amsterdam was a double decker train which is a first for me, and it was cool. And Amsterdam was lovely or dirty depending on which parts you are talking about.
I managed to find my pre-booked hotel with the help of my iPhone. Oh! What would I do without my lovely phone. Hotels in Amsterdam are very expensive due to all the British guys thronging it's streets in search of hedonistic pleasures. So all I could get on my meager budget was a bed in an 8 bed room share. This again was a first for me. It was very weird for me to share a room with a mom with her son and daughter, a Chinese looking American girl and the rest were Swedish guys. It did not help that there were around 120 empty beer cans under their beds, there were hundreds of FHMs on their beds, and they were shouting "we love Sweden"( even the girl, weirdly). So I dropped my bag, and headed into the craziest evening in my life. Amsterdam has a good tram system and I got a 24 hour smart card.
Right, if you are in Amsterdam, and it is your first evening there, where would you go? Yes, I went to check out the world famous red-light district, though it was a bit embarrasing to ask people for directions to the red-light district, particularly when you are alone and are an Indian. But, I managed, and wow!! What do I find, scantily dressed girls standing in windows, and the streets full with people. With Chinese and European tourists with their families, and British guys drinking in the pubs. One red-light district that is.
I had a horrible meal in a KFC, and went back to the room, which was quite happily empty. So went to bed.
The next morning took a boat trip across Amsterdam's wonderful canals, went to the Flower Market, and did the usual tourist trail. If I tell you, I got bored by 3 in the afternoon, you can imagine how little the city has to offer. So had a meal in a cafè full of people smoking weed, and headed to the station to catch the high speed Thalys to Paris.

P.S- I know I said I will post everyday. But, you know how lazy I am. So the story will come out slowly. And, I promise an incredible story. I am back in London by the way.

On the boat to Hook of Holland-2

>
>
>
> This is the moment, I was truly out of reach of Great Britain. Out
> on the sea, floating in a big ferry toward the continent. The ferry
> was bobbing up and down in the massive seemingly endless sea like a
> small raft. As I sat at one of the windows, beside a bunch of
> elderly English people happy with their pints of lager, I was more
> happier. I already managed to get some gasps from people with my
> lovely plan. For example, the customs guy, got an unexpected answer
> for his question about where I was going. I said Istanbul, by land.
> He looked me up and down," that's a long way mate, to go by land". "
> yeah, I know, I am a bit mental" " well, go on then suit yourself"
> Now, after 8 hours on the ferry, I am walking like Johnny Depp with
> the swagger of a pirate. After I had my lunch of some lovely English
> cod and chips, I slowly drifted to sleep, and started dreaming that
> I was the guy from "Life of Pi" floating in the pacific with only a
> tiger for company. When I woke up, I was a bit disappointed that I
> am not the Indian ocean, so I could be hijacked by some skinny
> Somali's.

On the boat to Hook of Holland

On the trail of the Orient express

Two years ago, as I still remember it, on a hot summer afternoon, I was browsing at the second hand book market under the Waterloo bridge, when I picked up The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux. I have put it down after two days, and decided that one day I would follow him, atleast till Istanbul or as I like to call it Constantinople. Agatha Christie, Graham Greene, Paul Theroux, and so many others did this trail from London to Istanbul by train, overland. Finally, after two years later, and after a lot of planning I am starting my trip the day after tommorow.
The original Oriental express, as it was called does not run anymore and the Orient express that replaces it is a luxury train, which I for one can't afford to take, and for two, is like travelling to Istanbul shut out from the rest of the world. So I had to make my own plans. It was not easy, checking the timetables, booking different trains, and being an Indian, getting visas to travel through Europe and visas to get into Turkey.But now, everything is set and ready to go. I will be blogging everyday during the trip from my phone, subject to availability of wifi.
My planned itinerary is
London Liverpool street - Amsterdam Centraal-by train and ferry
Amsterdam Centraal-Paris Nord-by high speed train Thalys
Paris Nord to Munich -by City Night line train
Munich to Budapest-by Rail Jet train
Budapest to Bucharest -by ordinary sleeping car train
Bucharest to Istanbul-by ordinary sleeping car train
I start in London liverpool street station on the 13th August at 6:25am, and will reach Istanbul on the 19th at 8:20am, with stopovers in Amsterdam and Paris.

When I went to Hay on Wye, Part-2

Time makes every memory more romantic, more pleasurable or more horrible than we felt actually at the moment. So it is with my trip to Wales. In my mind as I write this, the hills of Wales are more greener, the breeze from acres and acres of flowers is more scented, and the 45 minute ride from Hereford to Hay on Wye, one of the best rides of my life. As I recall that day, I don't seem to remember the meter in the taxi running faster than a rumour on the Internet. I don't seem to remember my anxiety as the taxi bill went from 10's into 20's into 30's, eventually settling in the 40's. I only seem to remember the lush greenery, the beautiful houses among the hills, and the most beautiful streams. I only seem to remember the Chinese family in the back of the taxi, whose English was the most basic, manners were impeccable and the love of books enough to bring them from China to a small village in Wales.
The moment the taxi stopped in the village, I could not feel being aprehended. I have never been in a village in England before, let alone Wales. As the Chinese family thanked me and went their way, I went searching for true salvation. And I got it. I found the book lovers paradise. Books. Books, everywhere. Row upon rows of books. Books in hallways, on steps, on the floor, in basements, in attics. Paperbacks, hardbacks, antiques, rarest of the rare. Literature, fiction, philosophy, medicine, gardening, crime, business, you ask for it, and they got it. Shop upon shop, lane by lane. Shops dedicated to books on murder, shops dedicated to books on music, the ones dedicated to books on cinema. Books for old, young, for born, unborn. Thousands of orange penguins on a big shelf.
A Vatican, a Mecca for people who want to read. For people who worship books. For those after knowledge. For those who can sit under a tree and while away the rest of their lives, just reading books. If books were gods, the shops were monuments or temples to them, with the sellers as high priests.
To be continued.........

One Giant Leap for mankind-A Backward leap that is

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past one month, you would have heard by now that today is the the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing by a human. NASA is celebrating it on a huge scale, and the media is trying to make all of us a part of it, which is actually great since it tells the newer generations a lot about how difficult it is actually to get into space and onto moon, how many sacrifices that man had to make to take that small step. And it also tells us that going into space is not actually as easy as what we see in say Star Trek, and we are a very very long way from making space travel that easier and accessible to everyone.
There are many reasons, why I call this has been a backward leap---

• That sense of accomplishment on that day, when Armstrong set foot on moon has been a very bad obstacle for future space exploration. American leaders did not have the vision to see it as an achievement for mankind, but rather as an upper hand in the duel with the Soviets. So after they proved to be superior by landing a man on moon, instead of taking the next logical step, which would be taking man to Mars, or any other planet, they cut back the funds to NASA, and let it be satisfied with peanut funded programs like International Space station. After all, moon is just a satellite of the planet called earth, and for mankind to survive for eternity, we have to find new planets, not moons that we can colonise. Atleast, until we find life on some extra-galatical planets, which are more advanced than us, and whose inhabitants will eventually make us their slaves. This year, instead of celebrating the 40th year and being happy with that, we(Atleast the Americans) have to start thinking about landing on Mars, and going further. Though given, the recession, and other problems, it could be very difficult to start such ambitious projects this or the next year.

• But what irks me really, among all this is what they did during the Apollo 8-which is the first mission that went out of earth orbit and orbited the moon, giving us this first picture of 'Earthrise'. I will quote from NASA's site about what they did "For the next 20 hours, the astronauts circled the Moon, which appeared out their windows as a gray, battered wasteland. They took photographs, scouted future landing sites, and on Christmas Eve read from the Book of Genesis to TV viewers back on Earth"---It was a bit of a shock even after 40 years, instead of realizing that we live on a small planet on this cosmic void, and we are alone, and there is no one to look after us but ourselves, all they could think of was to read from the Book of Genesis. Very recently Indians did something similar, when they launched their own Moon mission. They took the probe, they were about to launch around the country to all major temples, and mosques and churches, to get blessings for the probe. That Gods did not look after the probe and the probe got lost is another matter. I mean, the naivety or gullibility of man astonishes me and saddens me immensely.